Church Discipline & Infant Baptism (Driscoll / Lindell / Magala / James River Church Controversy)

Hello, and thank you for listening to the Testing the Spirits podcast. The title of this episode is Church Discipline and Infant Baptism. And those two things don't really have anything to do with one another, but hopefully you'll see where this is going in a moment.

There have been some new developments coming out of this whole controversy between Mark Driscoll and John Lindell, the pastor of James River Church. And of course, there was the conference that they put on, the Stronger Men's Conference, where they brought on this guy who some described as a stripper, and he swallowed a sword.

And yeah, you know what's going on by now. But basically what has happened, John Lindell has come out and used church discipline on Mark Driscoll. He has basically excommunicated Mark Driscoll. And we're going to talk about how the way they did it, it's cult-like, it's more abuse and manipulation.

So we're going to talk about how they totally botched and distorted the church discipline process. We're going to talk about how not to do it and how to do it. And then infant baptism, because this Alex Magala guy, the sword swallower, he came out and he said that he is an Eastern Orthodox Christian.

And he's a Christian because he went through a ceremony when he was a baby, and that's what makes me a Christian, he said. So we're going to address that too, because there's actually a lot of Protestants, some supposedly evangelicals believe that, yeah, you're a Christian because you were baptized or sprinkled as a child.

So those are the two bigger issues that I want to address. But going back to John Lindell, because I'm going to show a video in a second just to kind of set this up. John Lindell accused Mark Driscoll, part of the reason why he was going to use church discipline and excommunicate Mark Driscoll, because Driscoll is attacking the faith of Alex Magala.

John Lindell said, Magala is a faithful Christian. He's been saved for 10 years. He's married. He has kids, faithful member of this church. And none of that was true. Magala put out an Instagram video totally refuting all of that.

And let's just watch the video, and then I'll comment when we come back.

The False Claims About Alex Magala

Let's start with Alex Magala, the sword swallower. Alex is a born again Christian and has been for approximately 10 years. He is married, has children, and attends Mosaic Church in Los Angeles, California, where Erwin McManus is the pastor.

Listen to this.

I once heard Erwin McManus say, every truly healthy church has two things, heretics and people who are sexually immoral.

I just wanted to clear some details. So first of all, I have no kids. I have a family. I have no kids yet. So that's number one. And secondly, some sources say that I was saved by God around 10 years ago, which is not correct, because I'm an Orthodox Christian.

And I'm sorry if I'm wrong in terminology, I just, English is my third language. So I'm trying, but just bear with me. So Orthodox Christian means that I get through the ceremony of becoming a Christian as a baby.

So pretty much all my family is an Orthodox Christian and me as well.

Okay, so obviously there's a lot there to deal with. Most everything John Lindell said, again, was totally false. I'm not here to defend Mark Driscoll. I would not endorse the ministry of Mark Driscoll for several reasons.

Anyone who claims to get direct revelation from God, I mean, that's just a non-starter, but his whole debacle with Mars Hill and how he was kicked out of his own church and all the rest. So yeah, not endorsing Mark Driscoll at all.

But Lindell, Lindell is the bad guy in this situation. And I sort of feel bad for Magala because John Lindell is not doing him any favors and I'll explain more later on. But Alex Magala, he went on in the full Instagram video he posted, he went on to say that he only attends Mosaic Church, you know, once in a while when he's in town.

I think he lives in Ukraine or Moldova. So he's not even an American citizen or he doesn't live here anyways. So he's not a member of this church. He only attends once in a great while. But even if he were a member, you heard the video, you heard what the pastor said.

In order for a church to be a healthy church, you must have two things, heretics and those who are sexually immoral. I mean, that's the most crazy thing I've ever heard. It's the exact opposite of the truth.

In order for a church to be a healthy church, you have to have heretics in it. I mean, what in the world? So even if Magala was a faithful member of that church, if the pastor believes stuff like that, I mean, that doesn't help his testimony.

It would hurt his testimony. But again, it's not true. Anyway, so John Lindell, really Driscoll has been silent through most of this. So everything we know about what Driscoll has said and done, most of it's coming from Lindell.

And can you really believe anything Lindell says at this point? But yeah, the clip, it was David Youth who was quoting Erwin McManus. David Youth is the pastor of First Baptist Atlanta, or excuse me, First Baptist Orlando.

Atlanta is Charles Stanley's old church. That's not who I'm talking about. First Baptist Orlando. There's so many names and it's hard to keep it all straight. But yeah, David Youth, the pastor of First Baptist Orlando.

They were in the news a year or two ago where they were bragging that they, you know, not only were, apparently they were baptizing open homosexuals. The associate pastor, Danny Dearmus, was bragging about how they have transgenders who are members and they're serving and isn't it amazing?

And yeah, Justin Peters is right. I got one of the clips from Justin Peters' YouTube channel. He said, wolves run in packs. Yeah, these false teachers, you know, they really stick together. So one quotes the other and of course, John Lindell is promoting the ministry of Bill Johnson who promotes Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland and yeah, they, these guys all kind of support each other and run together.

But so if Magala was a member of the church, that wouldn't help. It would, it would hurt. So everything in this whole story is backwards. Everything is the opposite. You know, if you want a faithful gospel preaching church, I mean, nobody involved here is even.

Part of that.

It's always apostasy and false doctrine and it's, it's pretty bad. Now again, these, these bigger issues of church discipline and infant baptism, let's talk.

About this.

This is what I really want to focus on. It looks like that John Lindell has excommunicated, he has marked and avoided Mark Driscoll. So why did the church discipline process? Why, why is this problematic?

It looks like John Lindell rushed through the process, didn't even carry out the steps properly, but he rushed through the process in like four days. So John Lindell, number one, he isn't dealing with Mark Driscoll privately.

He's putting him on blast from the pulpit. So if you're trying to resolve an issue, that's not the way to do it. He seemed to rush to step number two and three right away. And then at step number three on that Wednesday night, I don't, I don't have the video.

You can look it up yourself. If you're following the story, I'm sure you already saw it. But on Wednesday night in his message, John Lindell, he rushed to step number three of the church discipline process.

And he said, if Mark Driscoll doesn't do what I want him to do and repent, he is to be shunned or avoided. Here's the problem. Mark Driscoll, it's not that Mark Driscoll shouldn't be avoided. It's how John Lindell did it.

He's dictating to his church what should happen. That's not what Jesus says. What does Jesus say? Matthew 18, here's the passage, Matthew 18, 15 through 17. Jesus says, moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

If he hears you, you have gained your brother, but if he will not hear you take with you one or two more that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church.

But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector, which means if he's a member of your church, he needs to be removed from membership and you should have nothing to do with him.

That's what Jesus is saying. Now, first of all, this is the process to go through. It's really dealing with two believers that have a personal dispute in a local fellowship. I'm not so sure that's what we're dealing with here, certainly because Driscoll is not a member of James River.

That aside, if this was public error, which you could argue it's public error, then Matthew 18, I don't even think applies, but here's the bigger issue. John Lindell just kind of blew through the steps of church discipline and he rushed the.

Process.

This needs to take a little time because what you want is restoration. You want repentance and you can't put someone on blast and then expect them to turn around within 24 hours. I mean, that's just not the way to handle this.

You got to give it a little time. And from what Lindell said, number one, he's putting Driscoll on blast. You say, well, Driscoll addressed it publicly too. Okay, fine. But according to what Lindell said, he only brought one other pastor.

I think it was Jimmy Evans. Don't quote me on that. But this other pastor, it wasn't two or three. It was John Lindell and this one other guy. They didn't even sit down with Mark personally. This one other guy talked to Driscoll on the phone, so they're not even following step number two correctly.

And then they go from step one to two to three, like overnight. And when they get to step number three, John Lindell is dictating to his church what the outcome's going to be. So instead of Driscoll, you know, giving him a little time to recant, they don't even give Driscoll any time and they don't give Driscoll an opportunity to present his side of the story to James River Church.

Lindell, acting like a cult leader, says to the church, okay, this is what we, or this is what you're going to do. Driscoll, if you're going to follow Matthew 18, tell it to the church, Driscoll should be able to address James River Church.

He was not given that opportunity. And again, I'm not looking to defend Mark Driscoll. It's just, this is, this is what the Bible says. And then the church should have heard Driscoll out and they should have weighed the evidence.

But again, I'll say it again, John Lindell is acting like a cult leader. He is dictating to the church what's going to happen. And I'm just, I'm just going to say it flat out, James River Church, the way it's being run, it's being run like a cult.

Okay.

That's how cults operate. People don't get a say. It's, it's the man of God, you know, dictating what's going to happen. And then there's the whole issue of some people are just like, well, it's, it's John Lindell.

It's his wife who's like the co-pastor, then his two sons. A single family should not be running a local church. That's a whole other issue. But that's pretty common within charismatic churches, Joel Osteen, you know, his wife is the co-pastor, his kids are pastors and just, yeah, that whole other issue.

There's so many problems here. We don't even have time to get into it. Here's the irony though. John Lindell totally botches the church discipline process. This is not how you are to do it. If you have a personal issue with someone, go to that person one-on-one and then bring two or three witnesses.

And really it should be people who are witnesses, like they were there, they know what's going.

On.

Not, Hey, bring in some pastor who thinks the way you do, no, no, a witness who is involved if at all possible. And then step number three, the church, bring it to the church means the church gets to decide, not the pastor dictating.

Okay.

So, but here's the irony. Mark Driscoll is put under church discipline because he objected to Alex Magala taking his shirt off, swinging around on a pole, licking the sword before he shoved it down his throat.

And then Driscoll's people, they Googled Alex Magala and found out the stuff about him being a male stripper, which may or may not be currently going on. And then three months ago, he was at a Buddhist temple, meditating, worshiping at a Buddhist temple.

So here's the irony, Driscoll is being put under church discipline because he took issue with all this and how he went about it. Anyone in their right mind would have called this out. Anyone in their right mind would have done what Mark Driscoll did.

So yeah, if Mark Driscoll is right about anything, he's correct about this. So the bigger issue, boil it all down, John Lindell has no basis for even starting the church discipline process. If anything, the church discipline process should be started against him.

That's the biggest irony. So everything is upside down. Everything is backwards. Matthew 18 is very clear. John Lindell kind of fudges it. He rushes it. He dictates. He does not handle the process correctly.

Not at all. Now onto the next thing about the infant baptism. As for the statement that Magala made that he's been a Christian ever since he was a baby, he says, that is what makes me a Christian. I'm Orthodox.

I'm Orthodox. That's what makes me a Christian because I went through this, this ceremony as a baby. Listen, said no verse ever. There is nothing in the Bible that would indicate that people become Christians because they went through some ceremony or they were sprinkled or, you know, baptized, quote unquote, as a baby.

There's not a single example anywhere in the Bible of a baby or small child being baptized. But this is a very common belief that this is how you become a Christian. This is what Orthodox believers, you know, Orthodox Christians, as they're called, it's what they believe.

Obviously Magala is one of them. That's what he's saying. This is the way Roman Catholics view it, that you're a Catholic or you're a Christian because you were sprinkled as a baby. And it's not just Orthodoxy and Catholicism.

It's actually a lot of Presbyterians and Methodists and other Protestant. That's why it matters because there's actually a lot of Protestants who think that way as well. Now, to be fair, if a Presbyterian also identifies as an evangelical, I'm sure they would probably say that a child must grow up and make a personal decision where they embrace the faith and embrace the gospel for themselves.

But again, this mindset that kids or babies who are baptized, that's what makes you a.

Christian.

This is very, very common. Matter of fact, of the 2 billion professing Christians on earth, I would say that the majority believes this and it's just not biblical. So what's the title of the podcast or the podcast overall?

It's called Testing the Spirits. How do we test the spirits? Well, we take what people are saying in the name of God, what Alex Magala said about what makes you a Christian, and we compare it to the word of God.

We are to test all things, hold fast to that which is good. First Thessalonians 5 .21, you know, test the spirits. First John 4 .1. So I have to point out that there is not one single example anywhere in the Bible of a baby or small child being baptized.

There are a couple statements about whole households that are baptized, but never once does it say or even hint that a baby or small child was part of those households. So it's not biblical. Whenever someone, we have plenty of examples of how baptism is to go down, how it's to be carried out.

Whenever someone gets baptized in the Bible, it is always that person's personal decision. You think of the Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts. He asked about being baptized. It was his decision. And then he went, they always go down into the water and come up out of the water.

So it's by immersion. Of course, the word baptize, baptizo, it means to dip or to immerse. So because someone understands the gospel, this is how it's supposed to work. A person realizes they're a sinner, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

I realize I'm a sinner before God. I need forgiveness. A person makes that personal decision to trust the gospel and because they believe the gospel and they believe in Christ, then they listen to Christ.

And the first act of obedience according to Jesus is to get baptized. And who does the baptism? A minister of the church. So every person is called upon by God to repent.

Okay.

Acts 17 verse 30, they are to call upon the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, believe he died on the cross, rose from the dead. First Corinthians 15, one through four, Romans 10, nine through 13, and then they are to be baptized.

So you, you recognize you're a sinner. You call upon the name of the Lord. You have faith, right? You repent. Then you are to be baptized and become a member of a local Bible believing church where you are taught all that Christ commanded, Matthew 28, 18 through 20.

So this is, this is how you become a Christian. You know, we're saved by grace through faith. And then once you are a believer, once you're saved, you get baptized because you're saved and then you're baptized into the church.

That's how you become a Christian, but it has to be your decision. You know, I almost feel bad for Alex Magala, John Lindell did him no favors by inviting him to this men's conference. John Lindell did him no favors by affirming his faith when clearly all the evidence is to the contrary.

So I think we should pray for Mr. Magala realizing that his belief that this baptism is what saves him. That's not biblical. Infant baptism, number one is a false doctrine, but even, you know, and listen, we can fellowship with, I'm not saying separate from, I don't want anyone to misunderstand me.

I think Baptists and Presbyterians can have fellowship. I think it's wrong. They think we're wrong, fine, but it becomes, it becomes a false doctrine as in heresy when you say it's the baptism that saves you.

Hey, this little kid was sprinkled. He's a Christian. He's saved because he or she was sprinkled. I mean, that, that would be a denial of the gospel. So you have to kind of figure out where people are at, but this, this is a false doctrine, what Magala is saying.

So John Lindell, long story short, I think he's definitely the bad guy in this story. I'm not defending Mark Driscoll. That's a whole other story. And like I said, I'm not interested in covering all the details as much as I'm interested in covering some of these bigger issues, church discipline, infant baptism, you know, what makes a person a Christian.

So I think it would benefit and hopefully will benefit the body of Christ. At least those who watch this video that we talk about the proper way to do discipline, the wrong way to do it. This was definitely the wrong way.

And there's, there's video out there. You can check it out of Lindell saying what he did. It's just totally wrong. And infant baptism, that's what makes you a Christian.

Yeah.

Just, we need to set the record straight. And let me close the podcast by saying this. If you have never personally placed your faith in Jesus Christ, if you have never put your personal trust in him, in his sacrificial death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead on the third day.

If you have never placed your faith in Jesus, you need to do it now. Maybe you were brought up in a household where everybody, you know, from day one, as early as you can remember, everyone in your family believed in God and you believed it.

I've believed in God my whole life. Maybe you were brought to church. Maybe you were even, you know, baptized as a baby. Well, you have to understand that is not what makes you a believer. We are saved by grace through faith, Ephesians two, eight, and that faith has to be yours.

It can't be the faith of your parents that was instilled in you. You have to come to the point in your life where you accept the faith as your own. So if you've never done that, or if you've never made the decision for yourself to be baptized, I would encourage you to do so.

Romans 10, nine says, if you confess with your mouth, the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved for all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Romans 10, 13. Thanks for listening. And until next time, may the Lord be with you and have a great day.